GHMC sanitation staff to undergo breast cancer screening

Hyderabad: As many as 400 sanitation workers of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) will undergo free breast cancer screening.

KIMS Hospital is organising free mammography screening for the employees aged above 50. It started on World Cancer Day (February 4) and will continue till International Women's day (March 8). A power-point presentation was given to create awareness about the importance of early detection amongst this most vulnerable group.

As part of corporate social responsibility, KIMS Hospitals is to screen 400 underprivileged women this year. The screening mammograms will be undertaken at KIMS-Ushalakshmi Centre for Breast Diseases, which is south Asia's first purpose-built comprehensive breast Centre.

Dr P Raghu Ram, director of the centre, said the GHMC sanitation staff work grueling schedules late night and early hours of a day, exposing themselves to dust and air pollution and many times risking their lives.

A newly acquired latest generation 3D mammography system is to be used to undertake screening for the women. "The aim is to detect cancer very early before the woman or the doctor can feel the lump in breast, which ensures a cure and excellent long-term survival."

Dr Raghuram observed that in India with around 14 lakh new cases diagnosed and over eight lakh deaths every year, cancer 'tsunami' has rapidly emerged to become a major public health concern. The grim statistics from WHO reveal that one in nine Indians will develop cancer in their lifetime and one in 15 will die.

Due to lack of awareness, the absence of a robust nationwide screening programme, inadequate healthcare staffing/infrastructure, limited affordability, and most importantly, inequitable and poor access to care, close to 60 per cent of cancer patients in India are in advanced stages, with significantly higher mortality, when compared with high-income countries. Breast cancer has overtaken cervical cancer to become the most common cancer affecting women in the country.

He said "close to 30 per cent of all new cancers detected in women in India are breast cancers. Around two lakh new breast cancers are diagnosed every year. In other words, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every four minutes. A woman succumbs to breast cancer every eight minutes. Every year one lakh women succumb to the disease," he said.